Saturday, January 07, 2012

Your Roommates Found Out About Your Secret Roommate Situation Day!

“How long has this been going on?” Eric will ask when you wake up in your tee shirt and boxers and you enter the part of the living room not occupied by Hillary’s futon.

Eric and Paul will be seated on the couch, behind the coffee table where a display of surveillance photos will be laid out, showing you in a different living room, in a different tee shirt and boxers, chatting over breakfast with a whole different set of roommates.

“You spied on me?” say to Eric.

“No,” Paul will say. “The private detective we hired spied on you. And the moment you get caught living a lie is not the moment for you to act violated.”

Tell them that you didn’t want it to happen. It’s not that there was something lacking in your roommate situation here.

“After I found this room, friends kept forwarding me Craigslist ads. They were really appealing, not better than this place. Just…different. New. Full of possibility. I figured I’d answer one. I thought hey, I can look, I just can’t lease.”

“But you didn’t just look,” Hillary will say. “Did you.”

Get up from the recliner and stand in the corner by the handwritten note reminding everyone that the TV has to be turned off by 1 AM so Hillary can sleep.

“The lies started immediately,” tell them. “And they just kept multiplying. At first I lied just to not seem like who I was, a whacko who goes looking for roommate situations when he already has one. I made up this whole story about how I had just moved into town and was hoping to make it as a DJ.”

“You’re in dental school,” Eric will say.

“I know I am!” you’ll shout. “And you know I am too. And maybe that’s why I did it. When I’m here I’m just a boring old dental student, living with a painter and an actress, and a web designer, you all have amazing, fun lives and I’m just the stiff. But when I’m there, I’m DJ Riboflavin. I throw parties and I come home at all hours with ribald tales to tell. And they’re the ones who want to hear my stories for a change.”

“Made-up stories,” Paul will interject.

“But at least they want to hear them.”

“We want to hear your stories,” Hillary will say.

“No you don’t. And why would you. It’s dental school.”

Your roommates will promise to pay more of an interest in you and your struggles at school, if you promise to move out of the other roommate share.

“I can’t,” say. “Not for another seven months. I’m on a lease. It’s not fair that they should have to suffer because I’m dishonest. Just like it wouldn’t be fair to you.”

Hillary, Eric and Paul will say that they understand, and they’re just glad the air is clear and they can trust you now. You’ll feel bad, but also a little excited. How did you pull it off? They found out you’re a liar, but you made them think you’ve only been lying to other people and they bought it. They still believe you’re in dental school. They believe you only presently occupy rooms in two apartment shares. And no one you live with anywhere has the slightest idea that you’re actually a practicing tax attorney who lives in a house in the suburbs with a wife, two wonderful children, and a Corgi mix.

“I’m almost at the point where even I don’t know who I am anymore,” you’ll say into the mirror when you get back into your room. “Almost. With every lie I tell I’m a little closer to the dream.”